FOOLISH SON OF MINE
by Hidden Gems
Summary: Chaptered story focusing on Ishida Ryuuken and his reaction when a wounded Uryuu is brought to him one night by Ichigo, Chad and Orihime despite the deal they had made.


**Disclaimer**: Bleach is the property of its creator, Kubo Tite, and of various companies that publish it. We all know I'm not making any money out of this; just playing with the characters a bit.

**A/N**: First time writing Ryuuken so hopefully no one will think I murdered him. Also, I don't know how this works with canon but we won't worry about this too much for the time being. Most fics end up AU as the series progress, don't they?

* * *

He hadn't gone home that night. Not that it was that unusual; surgeons rarely had regular shifts and it had become a habit of his to always leave a change of clothes and bag full of toiletries in his office. But he hadn't taken the time to change either.

His hand shook slightly as he set his coffee cup back on the saucer. How many had he already drunk in the last twelve hours? Coffee was bad for his nerves. He had made sure to limit his consumption years ago, but he'd had to stay awake. He wouldn't have let anybody else carry out that particular operation.

With a sigh, he stood up and decided to go for a walk. Nurses and doctors were busy all around him and no one paid much attention as he made his way to the intensive care unit. It was a bit of a walk from his office but he needed it. It helped him clear his mind, or at least that's what he told himself.

When he arrived in front of the door he'd been aiming for all this time, he stopped and peered through the small frosted glass window. Of course he couldn't see anything clearly—that was the idea of frosted glass, after all—but he could still discern enough to know that the nurse was in there, changing bandages. Just as he'd asked.

He sat down on a nearby bench and waited for her to be done. It took ten minutes and when she came out again, clutching a tray of bloody-looking bandages, she gasped, obviously not expecting him to be waiting there.

"Ishida-sama! G—Good morning."

"Good morning," he said, standing up again and smoothing out the front of his trousers. He might not have changed but it was no reason to appear untidy. "How is the patient doing?"

He didn't miss her slight frown as she looked away for a second. "He hasn't woken up yet. He's…in great pain, sir. I think we might need to increase the dosage of morphine, for the time being at least. Besides…"

"What is it?

"It still looks terribly infected despite our best care and I'm afraid it might spread to his already damaged lungs if we don't monitor it carefully, sir. I will need to change his bandages a lot more often than we expected."

"Do what is necessary."

She nodded and turned around, about to walk away, when she stopped and looked over her shoulder, although not directly at him. "Sir, how…how did your son come to get such a horrible wound?"

He turned his head to the side and stared at the frosted glass window. "I don't know. I don't care. All that matters right now is to do my job and heal him."

He didn't wait for her to respond—didn't honestly expect her to have anything to say to that—and walked into Uryuu's room. The boy was lying on his front, his face turned to the side to allow the oxygen mask to remain on. He wasn't wearing a pyjama shirt and his upper back was covered in bandages. As Ryuuken walked closer to the bed, Uryuu winced and let out a moan. Ryuuken stopped in his tracks.

_Foolish son of mine..._

Hollow-inflicted wounds were much harder to treat than regular ones, he had always known that. Some of those despicable creatures had poisonous claws, fangs or whatever it was they used to slash at their opponents, he knew that too. And as long as he didn't know what particular poison was eating Uryuu's flesh, he would only be able to watch silently and make the hospital staff believe that he didn't know what was happening either.

_I did say you were a failure. I knew this would happen. Why didn't you listen to me?_

When his son had been brought to him the night before by three teenagers who appeared to be acquaintances of his—and that Kurosaki boy was one of them—he had been tempted to turn them down. Uryuu had disobeyed him, broken his promise never to associate with a shinigami again, he deserved to be punished. At least that's what he'd though until he'd been shown the wound and told in a whisper by the girl that Uryuu had received it from a Hollow when he'd stepped in to protect her. She'd kept arguing with the boy, something about healing him, but he wouldn't hear it. He'd ended up shouting at her and fainting from the pain and blood loss, and only then had she ran away, in tears.

_So not only did you disobey me, but you went and risked your life for somebody else. Did you shout that "On the pride of the Quincy" crap as you jumped in front of her? Have I really not taught you anything?_

He sighed and looked at his son's face again. Yes, Uryuu was in pain, that much was obvious. He turned around and walked out.

After he closed the door behind him, he came face to face with a ginger-haired girl. He recognised her immediately and frowned.

"I—Ishida-sama," she whispered. She was pale and had bags under her eyes; obvious signs of a sleep-deprived night.

"What's your name?"

"Inoue. Inoue Orihime."

"He cannot receive visitors for at least another thirty minutes, Inoue-chan," he replied sternly, his hand still on the door handle.

She looked down. "I know. I asked at reception and they said it was all right if I waited in the corridor until visiting time starts."

"Shouldn't be on your way to school?"

"It doesn't matter if I'm an hour late," she said quietly, sitting down on the bench and setting her bag on the floor.

_Stupid children…_

"And what will that achieve? He hasn't woken up and most likely won't wake up in the next thirty minutes, so you won't be able to speak to him and you'll have missed a lesson for nothing."

Her fists clenched. "It won't be for nothing if I can see him…" she whispered.

He could tell she was on the verge of tears and it did nothing to improve his temper. Her reiatsu was weak but still much stronger than he'd felt in a long time for a normal human being.

"Do you have spiritual powers?"

She looked up. "Yes, sir."

"Are you one of the fools who went away with my son this summer?"

She withdrew her gaze at once and nodded timidly.

"Go back to school, Inoue-chan, and leave my son alone. He doesn't need the likes of you."

"But—I can help him!" he said much louder before he had time to turn away. "I can heal him, sir. He wouldn't let me do it yesterday but I can! That's my power," she added softly, reaching out to touch one of the flower-shaped pins in her hair, "I can heal."

He thrust his right hand into his pocket and considered her for a few minutes. The truth was that he didn't want to let anyone near Uryuu, but given the seriousness of the wound and the fact that he could do nothing about it, could he afford to be so picky?

"What can you do in five minutes?"

"Five minutes…? Well, not much I'm afraid. I had to use my powers for attacking yesterday and that always drains me quite a bit."

"Could you stop an unknown infection if you concentrated on that?"

"I think I could, yes. Why? What is wrong with him?"

"You have five minutes," he said, opening the door again. "After that, I want you on your way to school."

Her eyes watered as she stood up and beamed at him. "Thank you, Ishida-sama…"

She grabbed her bag and walked into Uryuu's room. He didn't quite close the door behind her so he could see what she was going to do—or at least try to. At first, she stood next to his unconscious son, wiping away the tears she could no longer hold back.

So she was indeed foolish enough to have fallen for Uryuu. He'd thought that much…

He was considering stepping in and asking her to leave—knowing perfectly well how rude that would be of him—when she took a deep breath, reached out for both her hairpins and whispered something he couldn't hear. One pin seemed to split and what he could only identify as two fairy-like creatures flew around the room before setting down on Uryuu, creating some sort of shield the length of the wound that ran across his back.

Ryuuken deemed he had seen enough and closed the door silently before making his way back to his office. Now he could change and start his working day properly.

_You have somehow managed to make friends with people as strange and foolish as you are…_


End file.
